Because there’s no reason to switch.
we do! one inch is exactly 25.4 mm. fluid volumes are almost always seen in both standard measure and metric. most disposable plastic water bottles contain 500 mL of water. lots of engineering for american stuff is actually using metric measures too, including automobiles!
other places use the standard measure as well. in canada, you’ll construct something with 2x4s and 4’x8’ sheets of OSB. in the UK, oh goodness… it’s a complete catastrophe. you’ll see distances in kilometers but speeds in miles per hour, and don’t even get started on stuff like body weight measured in stone, or the breakfast cup (these are actual, real units!)
a very good example is altitudes of aircraft. except for russia, china, and some ex-soviet nations, it will be in feet (or hundreds of feet; “flight level” 320 is 32 000 feet!). this holds true from the bahamas to japan to lithuania. the speed unit knot is a bit weirder, doesn’t neatly fit into either boat (pun absolutely intended), and is worthy of its own write-up.
whatever units you use, really our main suggestions would be to follow in the footsteps of the SI (even if using non-SI/non-metric units), be clear, and be consistent!!
stay safe and happy measuring :)
Because “‘MURICA” okay?
Why is the USA the only country that doesn’t use the metric system?
Ignorant question.
This thing is like the Harry Potter of countries. Yknow the way people say “Harry Potter is the only book that xyz” when it’s really the only book they have read
See the world, it’s more interesting than you’ve been told.
As a science teacher, when I see a worksheet online mention inches or pounds, that open tab on my browser closes at a rapid speed.
because they industrialized before metricalization and it would’ve been incredibly expensive to convert all their machines and tooling to metric afterwards. same reason as the UK. a lot of places industrialized later, in metric from the start, and didnt have this problem.
and then they became the hegemon, and didnt have to convert, because fuck you, why should i cooperate with vassals.
the US will convert to metric when it sinks to the level it deserves and the customary units become a pain because nobody else is willing to deal with them and all the importable equipment is in metric.
Americans aren’t taught the metric system in school in a way that would force them to understand why it’s better. American education rarely teaches life skills, and in my case, almost none at all even though I was a full honors student at a top high school.
Americans absolutely are taught the metric system.
Source: was once in elementary school
Because my car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I like it!
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What I always found funny is the drug trade. No, not medicine I mean the illegal drugs. They typically start at grams(metric) go up to ounces (imperial) then pounds(imperial) then back to kilograms(metric).
I don’t care which we use(I prefer metric but won’t die on that hill) but wish we would all just agree on one. Like hex keys, you need 2 sets one metric one imperial, same with socket sets. Or go to a machinist and ask them to “take a mil off” of some part, do you mean millimeter or millionth of an inch? Same thing with measurement gear, do you measure pressure in bar, psi, inHg, torr and for more fun are you measuring them positively or negatively… Yes that’s a thing. I had a sensor to measure humidity, the output was in ppm(parts per million) but the calibration was done in degrees Celsius dew point but our specificion was in ppm. Those measurements are not linearly related. So let’s say the sensor came back out of calibration as arrived(typically it would be adjusted and sent back to us within calibration). Now we had to find the closest measurement we had to the limit in ppm, convert that to degrees Celsius dew point, add in the percentage of reading outside of calibration, add in a extra safety factor, convert that back to ppm, compare to specified limit, determine if any product was made outside specifications and then write a report about if it actually mattered…
Nation of proud morons. Most of them do unofficially anyway
USA uses both, just like the UK and Canada. It’s standard in the states for…medicine, the military, science, and… two-liter beverage bottles.
I can tell you that the military doesn’t use it much in my experience in aircraft maintenance. I rarely ever saw a repair manual use metric.
Soft drinks in general. A can is 255ml, a bottle is 500ml, a big bottle is 2L
355 for the standard aluminum can irc
Could have sworn it was 330
Convenience store wise, a can of Coke is 12 ounces and a bottle is 20 ounces in the states. They have the volume in ml on the bottle though.
Grocery stores have 1l, 16.9oz, 12oz bottles, and 7.5oz cans.
It’s all over the map.
Containers of Specific Volumes For industry.
Ah yes, CSVFI.
We use both
We’re a stupid country rules by assholes and morons.
You just know if someone tried to make a serious push for it, all the fox news types would go into a frenzy. It’d be an easy way to whip up their idiot base.
Bass ackwards
I’m old enough to remember when they tried to convert us to metric. I can tell you why.
People tried to force it on us and we don’t need the metric system for daily use. Trying to force people to use it isn’t going to work. Now, personally, I’d prefer if measurements on rulers and in cars were still given in both systems.
Metric advocates tend to be smug and insulting towards anyone not using the metric system. I have seen this myself more than once. Calling a whole nation stupid because they use a different but functional system of measurement is hardly a good strategy for converting them to your system.
I learned the metric system in school. I understand that the metric system is superior in many sciences. I have strong interests in anthropology. And here I am at 55 and I have never, not once, needed to use metric. Bone measurements are often given in metric but it’s not such a big issue that I need to wholly convert to metric.
My question is, what’s the big deal? Is the metric system a religion? I’ve seen evangelical Christians less intent on converting people. Why?
This is the big deal.
These people didn’t need to die because people can’t see how doing something that makes it easier to communicate important information was too boring to bother with.
This is the same fucking stupidity to resist for literally no good reason simply because it would benefit literally everyone.
Because "less people will need to die for dumb reasons. Less sons and daughters will die after their own children are in the ground. It might not be a lot but it includes some of the smartest and most capable people wouldn’t have had to be blown to smithereens.
Vapourized in an instant, because you and everyone like you in this regard, are to fucking stupid to see the obvious benefits of choosing not to impose a handicap on endeavoring the biggest projects in human history.
And having the fucking gall to ask, what’s even the big deal?
cringe
See his third paragraph about being smug and insulting.
If your point is “but you’re mean” then you don’t have a point.
Ok shitwood
For something as standard as math and science; it would be beneficial to have consistency across the whole board.
Im American and learned the metric system and it was helpful with science. I completly bombed the A.C.T but I scored in the top 3% in the science category.
At least some of the drugs in Americas still use the metric system. Thanks MDMA and LSD. Meth too I guess since people buy points aka 100mg
base 10 is way better than whatever the fuck cups, pints, ounces, different ounces, and so on are
Functionally, what’s better about it? I mean, really.
way easier to learn/remember or to convert things in your head. less chance of getting it wrong.
but once you’ve spent years and years getting used to the mess that’s US customary measurements, you’ve already put the work in, so metric doesnt look that much easier (and if you’re unfamiliar with it, will look downright harder).Is it that much easier? I think y’all make US customary out to be more complicated than it is.
it’s so complicated i definitely don’t remember ounces in a pint or quart or yards in a mile, let alone any of the less common ones despite living in this shithole.
division by 10 is the easiest division you can have in base 10
When have you ever needed to know yards in a mile?
Fractional math of a US tape measure is certainly more complicated than it needs to be. I’d rather just add and subtract directly than find the common denominator and subtract that in my head.
US car manufacturers got halfway through converting to metric, but decided to keep a few things that require SAE tools, cluttering up a garage or shop with slightly different tools.
Ounces vs fluid ounces is infuriating. So is having a recipe call for a pint of blueberries but blueberries are sold by the dry pint. Making larger or smaller portions in grams/weight is way easier than figuring out what sort of measuring spoon combinations you need for making a smaller/larger portion of a quart ingredient.
yes, it’s generally easier to remember 10 as the conversion number and nothing else, and it’s also easier not to have to add/multiply fractions of an inch in your head.
this also works between types of units, so it’s pretty simple to remember that 10cm^3 is 1l is ~1kg of water, for example.
I already know how many cups to a pint, pints to a quart, and quarts to a gallon there are bad fractions are so simple that we learn them in the 1st grade.
it’s still more stuff to remember than you have to in metric. but yes, of course, now that you’ve already spent years memorizing this shit and practicing fraction addition/multiplication in your head a lot, it seems easy to you.
The main reason it annoys me is because a lot of English-language recipes online are written by USAmericans and therefore use imperial units that I have to convert. I’ve also noticed that they seem to measure everything in cups even for things where it makes no sense to use volume (flour is a common one—isn’t baking supposed to be precise? Flours can have different densities, air pockets, etc). I find ounces really confusing because they can be volume or mass.
Also, imperial is not standardised, so different countries have different amounts for a cup, an ounce, a pint, etc. I guess I can check the recipe author’s country and then convert to metric. But I just find it confusing. Can’t we just all use the same units that are nice and easy to use together since they’re powers of 10?
It’s way easier to bake in ounces, IME
Metric is designed more for calculating on paper. For things using your hands like baking and carpentry, customary units are better. They’re designed for that.
Yeah no they’re just more confusing.
The first time I encountered a baking recipe with ounces, I looked up ounces as I didn’t know what they were. Imperial units aren’t taught in a lot of countries. The Wikipedia article said ounces could be mass or volume, and also had different values in different countries. So I was just very confused as to what the author meant.
Everybody knows what a ml is, what a gram is, etc. They have the same value everywhere. There’s no ambiguity. What is “customary” for you is a confusing system imposed on the rest of the world who want to understand what you mean.
